Catch You
by Deona Lindholm
Summary: Season 3, OneShot. There are thoughts from two beings, and both are about one man, Michael Knight. R&R Please!


_Catch You_

Something I had always done...

Ever since the very first mission in Millston, when you were in danger of dying, I had been there.

At first, it had been merely part of my programming. After all, you and I, as you humans say, got off on the wrong foot. But the truth was, you are my pilot, my partner. I had been designed, customized, to your specifications...even though in terms of personality, we clashed. We still clash...but nowhere near as much as back then.

It's puzzling, but I wonder when and how things changed, how I went from being merely a program within a supercar to being, well...sentient...alive. Just as much, I wonder how and when I started tolerating that obnoxious noise you call music, how it stopped irritating me whenever you'd tell me to shut up...how in the world I started questioning things about existance...humans, my own...and how I've gone from having only a programmed set of responses to having actual emotions.

I can definitely say that all this is because of you.

Every time that you've come close to death, I've always been there to catch you when you're falling. This time is no exception.

Or maybe...this time _is_ different.

When I saw the poison in your system from the rare Jantilus orchid, it worried me. It surprised me when, on the road, you were still alive, living on mere will-power. When you were falling asleep, I knew that if I let you, you'd never wake up. I tried to wake you anyway, but I panicked. Odd...an Artificial Intelligence, panicking.

The only I could think of to do, as before, was to catch you. This time, in the form of endless jokes. To you, the act was going nowhere...but this time, it is.

It's going somewhere...going to help keep you alive.

Before, it was merely programming. Now...it's because I want to.

It takes on so many forms, a new way for each time, but this I promise you, Michael.

As long as I exist, I'll catch you. I won't let you fall.

00000

Strange, isn't it?

In the beginning, I thought you were a mistake. I even said so to my closest friend. More, I hated you and wanted nothing more than for you to be gone. I only agreed to keeping you on because it was his last wish.

Somehow...in the simple span of three years, it changed. I still don't know how or where it started.

After that death, I do know that I had mentally put up a guard. The last thing I wanted was to be that close to a friend again. As with the hatred, I don't know how it changed.

Only recently, during an undercover mission, the one where as part of the cover you were suspended, then fired, a lot of old anger came into it during the incidents in my office, including when you came back for the Bohr-Fellows key. I never told you, but this time, after the mock attack, I felt a little worried, but mostly...sad. Perhaps guilty.

In the freezer room in the chemical plant, where the key you had taken fit, there was something else happening. Within that simple embrace, I swear I could feel the last barrier break.

On this latest case, it infuriated me, more than you know...more than I let you know. The 20 year old girl that took the dose of poison gas, meant for you...the hoodlum that had attacked you with hubcaps, lined with razors, with the intent to kill you...and then, while interrogating the insignificant lout, I found out that another innocent had accidentally taken poison that was meant for you.

On top of that...later when you were going to put an end to all of that and get the antidote...Kitt tells me that you, too, were poisoned.

Hearing that was one thing...I didn't want to even think about what failing would mean, not now...but seeing you as I pulled up in the ambulance, soaked in sweat, trying not to fall while holding onto a vial...

...it hurt a lot more than I thought.

I don't want to lose you, not anymore. I don't want you to die.

The thought is more than I can bear.

In the ambulance, you fell, just now...I caught you, but even now, I can feel you starting to fade away.

I feel my eyes burning, but I won't let the tears fall...not here...not now.

I won't let you die, Michael.

I promise you, like Kitt, I'll catch you.

I won't let you fall...not anymore...never again.


End file.
